1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a child crib specifically structured to accommodate the various stages of child growth and development from infant through the toddler ages.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a child matures from the infant stage through the toddler stage, the specific needs of the child and level of attentive care demanded of the parents slowly diminishes. At the earliest stages, from birth to six months of age, an infant requires the highest degree of care. For this reason, it is advisable that the infant sleep in the same room with the parents to immediately alert the parents of the need for feeding, changing of diapers, or comforting the infant. Many parents prefer to keep their child as close and as accessible to them as possible so that they can attend to their baby without having to get out of bed and walk across the room. On the other hand, it is not advisable to place an infant in bed with adults due to the fear of a parent rolling over in their sleeping and accidentally injuring the baby. Further, typical beds are not ordinarily equipped with appropriate gates or railings to prevent an infant from rolling out of bed, which in many instances, would result in injury. Additionally, the transition from the parents' bed to the child's own bed can be highly stressful to the child who has developed a sense of security from sleeping in the parents' bed. In fact, even the transition from a crib to a child bed can be somewhat difficult for a child. This is due to the fact that the child becomes accustomed to a particular sleeping place during the early infant years and slowly begins to identify that familiar sleeping place as a type of safe haven. Therefore, it would be most beneficial to keep the infant in a crib having the proper protective railings, if the crib were capable of being held in place alongside the parents' bed, were capable of eliminating the physical barriers between the parent and the child, were capable of eliminating height differences between crib-mattress and parents' bed and were capable of converting later to a conventional crib and later still to a conventional youth bed.
There are numerous types of cribs known in the art, most of which are particularly designed to prevent a child from falling out of bed. Some cribs are convertible into a youth-type bed by providing for the removal of the side gates when the child reaches the toddler stage. Other cribs include side gates that can be raised and lowered, allowing access to the mattress to facilitate removal of the infant from the crib or to replace the sheets on the mattress. Still, other cribs have been designed as a part of a two-bed unit, wherein the particular crib fits in combination with a matching adult size bed of the same manufacturer.